Medela Family - Breast Feeding Reviews

In 2019 and the beginning of 2020, MedelaFamily saved my life. My husband and I both used it on our phones to track bottles and diapers, and I tracked breastfeeding and pumping. It was user friendly and well organized. With baby #2, I just reopened MedelaFamily to use it again and it’s just terrible. :( It’s very unorganized, timers automatically start when you click to log breastfeeding or pumping that you have to immediately stop and then manually put in your time (unless you have a pump that will connect to MedelaFamily via Bluetooth). And don’t get me started on logging previous happenings - I came home from the hospital and wanted to log her first 36 hours in MedelaFamily so everything was in one place, and when it takes about 10 tries to change the time on logging something and the date because they make it so small that you fat finger everything. They have what feels like 5 millions categories now for logging when it was nicer to have the basics - breastfeeding, pumping, bottles, and diapers. Stats gives you the overall for the day but it’s laid out different for each day in a different order depending how what order you logged things. It is just SO hard to navigate efficiently now and it’s difficult to find things!!! Medela, please fix these issues because I am losing my mind after using MedelaFamily for only 24 hours! I really don’t want to switch to another one but will have to if it stays like this — it’s giving us headaches.

**update** Medela contacted and said I was one update behind and that updating my app again will fix my problems. It seemed to for a week. But just now I was nursing and finished and my time seemed off. Sure enough it says I started at 6:45am, finished at 7:03am, and recorded 21 min of nursing. Not sure how this is possible when only 18 min of time had elapsed. My original review below stands. My girl will be one in a week and I won’t be using MedelaFamily after that.

I used the old Medela App for over 2.5 years before they switched to this new version. And while the old one was annoying to travel between tracking and stats, the new one just doesn’t work as well. When I’m tracking breast feeding and pause for a min for whatever reason, then go back to tracking, it will jump from say 7 min to 12 min. Yet I KNOW it has only been 7 min. This happens more times then it doesn’t and is extremely frustrating. I also dislike when you go to the track session it doesn’t tell you which side you last nursed on. You have to go back to the my baby page to see that. The slider bar to input ounces of formula or milk is annoying. The stats used to be much easier to edit and now it’s like I need a manual to Use MedelaFamily . It’s glitchy and inconsistent. If I wasn’t a month away from being done with nursing I would find a new app

I loved the old medela app, the new update was a poor decision on medela’s part. MedelaFamily is not user friendly - it’s impossible to log a pump session afterwards or to log a session trying to use “both” sides at the same time when using a pump that is not one of the smart pumps from medela! I literally now have to click in to every minute and second field and divide out (if I do 30 mins, I have to say I did 15 on left, 15 on right - if I put 30 on each side it says my total pump time is 60 minutes)! I also hate the new list view of what you’ve pumped or nursed for the day and the graphs (by showing the time and ounces in one graph it greatly skews the graph showing ounces - which let’s face it that’s what we’re all looking at not how many minutes)! Having to slide a scale to log ounces now is also annoying, but not more annoying to trying to have to touch in just the right spot to get the field editable on time. Also when trying to log a session in the past you have to search high and low allll over MedelaFamily to try and make that happen. All in all I give the new app 1 star, the old app I would give 4.5 stars - very disappointed but feel stuck and can’t switch apps now because I’ve been logging in here for 17 weeks now. Medela developers if your listening, please fix all these bugs!! Thank you!!

After the recent update to Medela Family, MedelaFamily has been nearly impossible to use. Real time tracking is somewhat okay, but as a mom, who has time to track everything in real-time? I usually track past sessions when I get time, and on this version, it’s nearly impossible. It is so difficult to log the specific time of the feeding and/or sleeping sessions. You have to click on each field for hour, minutes, and seconds to fill them in and most of the time it doesn’t recognize my touch or puts the cursor in the completely wrong area. For sleeping sessions, I don’t see any way to log the duration for a past session. This version is much less user friendly than the old version and so cumbersome and confusing to use! The chat function of MedelaFamily is also completely unhelpful. It doesn’t understand any question I ask and instead of giving me answers, just sends a random article or says it doesn’t understand.
The stats page is also very difficult to read. It was much better before in the old version with the charts and summary page they gave.
Overall VERY frustrated and disappointed with the update. Probably won’t use MedelaFamily anymore since it’s such a hassle!

MedelaFamily was a lifesaver as a new mom. It tracks diaper changes, breastfeeding, and pumping. Though I didn’t utilize it as much it even allows you to track height and weight (our Pedi does this for us so not much use for it). I appreciated the ability to contact a lactation consultant whenever I needed one (who knows where to find those anymore?!). But, I will say MedelaFamily has some quirks you need to be aware of. It will occasionally log you out. If you choose to manually enter time for a session it defaults to the last breast you fed/pumped on and you will have to also manually select which side you used. And the quick track only shows up in the list or day overview not under stats for whatever you auto logged. For example if I didn’t want to open and log the details of a diaper change just that one occurred I would hit the quick track but it doesn’t show up under diaper instead only under list or day overview.

I used MedelaFamily with my 1st for 15 months and it was amazing!!! Never did I have to question my logs or search for which side to feed on next. Now, with my 2nd and using for almost 7 months, after the updates, my times record incorrectly - usually adds 5-10 minutes if I go out of MedelaFamily and come back in.. even though 5-10 minutes have not gone by, a lot of times I know I’ve hit pause/save just to come back in later and time is still going/not paused/not saved. Sometimes I’ll come back in knowing it has been at least an hour and the timer is still going but only shows 15 minutes. I’ve mainly started to just use it to know which side to feed on because I know my logs are 9 times out of 10 incorrect. I’ve actually started searching for a new app. Oh, and not to mention I can BARELY READ THE “L” or “R” on the home screen. I ALWAYS have to go in my “stats” to be sure I am feeding on the correct side. MedelaFamily is NOT user friendly. I wish 10,000 times they would just do away with it and bring back the old version!!!!! Don’t use MedelaFamily.. save your frustration and find something else😁

After the recent update of MedelaFamily , it is extremely difficult to use. Logging pump sessions are so difficult and often save inaccurately. I track my output as a whole rather then each breast and for the first week of using the new version I noticed it was doubling the ounces I recorded thinking that was the output for each breast rather than the total. Reading my daily stats is frustrating as everything is summarized into one line. It’s difficult to view individual pump sessions and took me awhile to figure out how to move the display to show every session. Manually entering information takes twice as long and is such a hassle now. I’ve been using MedelaFamily for 9 months and after this update I’m trying to figure out how to transfer my pump long to another app as this has become too frustrating and cumbersome to use. It’s worth the hassle to figure out how to transfer my data rather than continue using this each day.

Update: I have updated my app to the latest 5.0.6 version and it is still glitchy. I’m finally downloading a new pump tracking app and just keeping this one for historical records.

It’s ok but annoying. On an initial pass it’s really helpful but as you try to optimize your usage it falls apart. The slider to select the amount of used while bottle feeding is a pain to use and the manual entry auto fills 0 which you need to delete before moving on. The manual option would be much better if they used a placeholder value. The stats list doesn’t show all entries for a particular sub category until I scroll on the main list. For example we just added our third weight tracker and the birth weight wasn’t available in the weight section.

You’ll get random surveys that are required. You can say remind me later later but that means 2 seconds. I even got the survey prompt while I was filling out the survey. The last tracked setting doesn’t accurately reflected what was actually tracked last. Sometimes it shows the values for me and my partner other times it’s just my events.

The more I use MedelaFamily the slower it seems to get. We’ll probably switch to a new app.

I just updated MedelaFamily and it somehow got worse. I am not able to pause my pumping sessions (left and right side at the same time). The timer automatically starts too which is frustrating. The “both” button simply doesn’t work. MedelaFamily is not user friendly at all. It is even difficult to find where to go to log a pumping session. The stats section doesn’t show the total amount my baby has eaten in a day, which is one of the most important features. It only shows the average. Why would this important feature be removed? One of the main reasons I log are to track how much my baby eats each day. You also can’t scroll to see all the feedings from the day on the graph. Tons of these necessary features were taken away from MedelaFamily which makes no sense at all. This is insanely frustrating and very disappointing. I am not sure how this update was even approved to be released. I’ve been using MedelaFamily for over a year and now and this update is a downgrade. How can an update make an app worse and remove key features?

I discovered MedelaFamily when I started pumping after breastfeeding my little one was established, and it made a world of difference! Before MedelaFamily I was tracking the same stats in the Notes app on iPhone but would miss feedings is diaper changes. MedelaFamily makes tracking breastfeeding, pumping, diaper changes and sleeping easy with just one tap. I like that I’m able to track multiple things at once. For example, if you would like to pump while your little one is sleeping, you can do so. Having lactation consultants helped me when I had problems with plugged ducts.

The quirk that bothers me is that I liked to feed or pump one breast at a time, but MedelaFamily auto selects both breasts if you manually enter your pump/feeding session. That’s not enough for me to give less than five stars! Definitely recommend for new moms even if you have a different pump system.

MedelaFamily has more issues and causes more problems than I can count. BIGGEST issues are:
- every so often it logs you off and you can’t login in again - it goes into an terms agreement page and errors back to the login page no matter how many times you try. The only solution is to delete MedelaFamily and reinstall
- It recreates entries you deleted. 1- if you want to pause for a few minutes, the pump shuts off so it ends the session and creates an entry, so you have to create a manual entry and delete the one tracked automatically. The session you delete will pop up a few extra times and you have to delete it again and again.
- It randomly deletes data you enter. Volumes you enter for a session will disappear and you have to re-enter OR they will not count towards totals and you have to go into the session and change the numbers to make them count.
Pumping is time consuming and difficult as it is without having to deal with MedelaFamily. Medela developers need to fix this.

I’ve been using MedelaFamily for over a month now, and it’s performance seems to be getting worse. I primarily use MedelaFamily to keep track of nursing sessions, and here are some of the issues I’ve been experiencing: (I) The start time of a nursing session changes as the session continues. For example, I started a session at 2:51 PM today, but at some point during the session it changed to something like 2:35 PM for no apparent reason; (II) When timing a nursing session, time is randomly added. For example, suppose I’ve been nursing for 9 minutes on the left side, all of a sudden it will say I’ve been nursing for 17 minutes; (III) Some of my saved nursing sessions have “disappeared” from my statistics.

These are just some of the issues I’ve experienced recently. It is frustrating when you cannot rely on the start time and length of the recorded nursing sessions - these are (arguably) some of the main reasons for using MedelaFamily in the first place. This could be a great app if they could get the features to work correctly.

I used MedelaFamily for about two months before researching to see what other apps were out there and found far better alternatives like Baby Tracker, Glow Worm, and Huckleberry. Obviously, MedelaFamily is more focused on breastfeeding and the tips and links to articles for breastfeeding support are the core competency. A feature I would like to see is how long on average between breastfeeding sessions. However, my purpose was to analyze sleep. MedelaFamily doesn’t differentiate between daytime and night time sleep which makes the average stats useless (a 20 minute nap averaged with her 10 hour night time sleep means nothing). There were also a few bugs when trying to set the time for a manual tracking (the AM/PM kept jumping). There are a lot of extra button clicks to get to see the useful stats like the daily pattern which can also only be seen for 3 days at a time. Overall, MedelaFamily let me collect a lot of data but did little to help me make that data tell me something useful.

Whoever was responsible for the latest round of updates to MedelaFamily obviously did so without any regard for their users. Does the UI look clean and polished? Yes. It is easy to use and have quick access to the info I care about? No. Tracking feedings, diapers, etc used to be incredibly simple and accomplished in a few steps. Now to log these it’s a series of steps, with tiny buttons/small click areas and changing the time of the event is incredibly cumbersome. The time is very hard to edit from the default setting and requires the user to perfectly place the cursor in the right part of the time field to make the edit. Also for the life of me I can no longer see my baby’s cumulative total of what they have eaten that day. Did you guys even consider what matters to your users or run any usability testing? The home page of “my child” is cluttered with articles I don’t care about. I just want to see a quick overview of info that’s really about “my baby.” This latest update is a fail.

I used MedelaFamily two years ago with my first child and loved it. I had my second and quickly redownloaded it- my first week home they changed to a new version which I didn’t love from the beginning. I gave it a shot - currently 4 weeks later and I’m noticing in the last few days that while it’s tracking in the background, the time gets doubled each time I go back to it. Example: I was at 8 minutes at 11pm - opened it back up at 11:05 and it had jumped to 20 minutes - it also seems to mess up my start times. I make sure that MedelaFamily was closed, then open it to track. It always ends up saying I started 10 minutes earlier than I did when I know for a fact I wasn’t even sitting down at that point. I only use it for tracking feedings and am disappointed and will probably delete it soon because I’m doing more work adjusting to keep track

I have the Sonata pump and was loving the easy tracking through Bluetooth. Then the update hit. It has a much prettier interface, but the tracking itself is awful. It has ruined my experience with MedelaFamily . It shows you your last sessions on the home page, but you can’t even click to edit them. Then, when you connect to your pump, you put in the information after you’re done, but there is no safe button. The only way I noticed it transitions to make a save button is if I press on the pause button on the pump. And this has now been the 5th time the past two days that I do that, and my time disappears and I have to re-log everything manually... I have lost several sessions because of this. Really sad that the update has made things harder because they did a great job with the looks of MedelaFamily itself. If it weren’t for all the lost data, I would give it 5 stars...

I loved MedelaFamily, until they updated it. They completely changed EVERYTHING. The format, layout, how you use it. It is not as user friendly as before, if you make an error, and need to change your data, it’s hard to correct. I double pump, usually for 30 minutes. I forgot to start the time once, snd pumped for a total of 33 minutes, I stopped the timer after 31 minutes. When I tried to correct the time, MedelaFamily gave me an error that I cannot set the time to total more than an hour. It totals the amount of time on each side. Then it zeroed out the side I was trying to correct. I could not change it…. ALL of my data and months of pumping and tracking is gone…. It auto defaults to breastfeeding every time, I have to change it to pumping. When I forgot I had to fight with MedelaFamily to figure out how to delete the breastfeeding log, and then bumble through logging the correct information. I HATE MedelaFamily now. Definitely look for a different one!

I downloaded MedelaFamily when it was still the old version. The new version is not user friendly and has glitches. Logging a pumping session after the fact is annoying. I don’t get service in the room where I pump at work, so every time I pump at work, I have to log it afterwards. I finally figured out how to see the actual time of my last pumping or breastfeeding session. On the dashboard or home screen, it just shows how many hours ago the session was which rounds. I like to be able to see the actual time. Lately when I have MedelaFamily running in the background during a session, when I go back into MedelaFamily , the time doubles, so I always have to adjust the time to what it should be. I know for a fact the time is wrong because my pump has a timer too. I miss the old version. I wanted a simple app where I could keep track of my pumping and breastfeeding schedule.

UPDATE: MedelaFamily is so buggy, I tried giving it another chance, but it adds sessions that I have not logged, it’s really hard to read, it adds minutes or even hours to my sessions and it is very difficult to edit those sessions. This update has been awful.
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UPDATE: I saw the developer response, sorry but MedelaFamily is super buggy and difficult to use, it really did not save my logs from the day of the update, the data is shown differently and it is hard to read , I can no longer track 2 different things at the same time because only one will continue to be timed, the other one will be paused, the whole update was unnecessarily confusing.
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This new update made MedelaFamily less user friendly and intuitive, I lost some data and overall I feel it is much slower. It has a lot of unnecessary information that makes it difficult to find what you actually want to see. There was a login error today, which I understand because a few minutes later an error appeared saying they were doing some maintenance, that’s ok, but after I was able to log in the sessions I was tracking were lost. I really dislike that you can’t edit previously saved tracked sessions, it doesn’t show the start time of previous sessions and you can no longer see everything you tracked as a list but only in a graph.

I was excited about the idea of being able to track the output and specifics of each session as I have goals of breastfeeding long term. MedelaFamily offers a way to do this by recoding the time, amount of ounces pumped, and which breast, or if both breasts, were used. After long sleep deprived nights, this sounded amazing as my tired brain could not remember all of these details. Well it turns out-neither can MedelaFamily ! I constantly have to go back and re-enter data that should have previously saved as it deletes or just doesn’t save it. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the data sets it chooses to delete and it’s frustrating as I can’t recall the details of a pumping session when I’ve pumped 4-6 times in a day as this is the sole reason I downloaded MedelaFamily ! I’ve deleted it and re-downloaded it but that didn’t help at all. 😕 Be better Medela and fix this issue!

I love MedelaFamily because for one, it’s free. Although I am an exclusive pumper, i love the idea of having a lactation consultant available 24/7. Other apps I’ve used, after a few days, you have to pay for access to certain things and I think with being a new parent or having a newborn, it’s already costly so to add on to that isn’t worth it. MedelaFamily is organized and easy to navigate. I love that it gives the average and total amount of how much I pump, how much my child eats and sleeps. Would definitely recommend MedelaFamily to other new parents, especially those who use the medela breastfeeding brand products.

I like how MedelaFamily incorporates all of the aspects of tracking my baby, but the login issues are a real problem. On a semi regular basis, MedelaFamily logs me out and then tells me that my login has failed even though I have the correct password. It can take multiple attempts and untold time until MedelaFamily lets me log back in. This can be very frustrating when you are trying to check how long your baby has been sleeping or when you are trying to log information into her chart.

Other than the login issues, I like how you can track breastfeeding, bottles, pumping, diapers, sleep, weight, and height all in one place. I would like to see a timer for the bottles, as my pediatrician will ask how long it takes for her to eat. It would also be nice to have a place to track medicine, for when the little one needs it.

This was great starting out bc you can time and keep track of everything. However, even when you have ALL notifications turned off it keeps telling you “great job”, “way to go” for breastfeeding and diapers. This was fine the first couple of weeks, but is annoying as hell 6 months later.

I have been in contact with the makers of MedelaFamily multiple times as it asks me about every 2 weeks to rate MedelaFamily . I have voiced my frustration at the constant notifications even though I’ve turned them all off, this is a bug they haven’t been able to fix in 5 months. Additionally, I’ve told them that I have already given my feedback and rates their app (internally, not here), yet every 2 weeks it asks me to rate it again-as if for the first time.

Additionally, about one month ago MedelaFamily started being really slow to open, even when already running the timer. For example, I set the timer to breastfeed and then move on my phone to check emails and then when I toggle to MedelaFamily 5 min later it takes forever to open, as if it wasn’t an already open window/program on my phone.

I realize these seem like trivial things, but when using MedelaFamily 20 times a day to register and track everything it is really annoying!!!!

Overall helpful for tracking feedings. Enjoy the timer option-easer than just trying to remember everything.
Suggestions for improvement would be keeping the option bar at the bottom in any screen. For example, before I start breastfeeding I want to check my last session to see how long baby was on each side. Then, I wish I could just select “tracking” at the bottom instead of having to back out of two screens before getting that option. It doesn’t seem like a lot until you have a baby screaming to be fed. Also wish if we did a pump or bottle session they would all show up together displayed the way the breastfeeding sessions are.

I’ve been using this for 5 months since my son was born (even though MedelaFamily doesn’t seem to know that he’s been born, it keeps asking me if has despite having his birthday logged, as well as updated height and weight and 5 months of tracking.)

My biggest issue is that it will drop feedings or pumping sessions. I’ve hit saved but they’re not recorded. Then, Sometimes it will refuse to save sessions (throw an error) and after I cancel out of the tracker my session will have been saved all along. It’s unpredictable like that. It’s once or twice a week this happens.

I’m also mad that it keeps asking me to rate it, but when I do I get an error that the email won’t send, so I decided just to skip that and come to MedelaFamily Store.

It also can be very slow to load, which is not fun when you have an angry hungry infant and you’re trying to remember what the last side you fed on was.

It’s superior to using a paper and pen like I did my first time bfing, but not by a lot. But it functions well enough I’m not going to bother trying to find another app either. I do like it’s reporting options, I really just wish it was more consistent.

I love MedelaFamily, and all of the features it has. You can track weight, height, breast feeding, bottles, diapers and sleep! It’s so intuitive and easy to use. I only wish it would let you track solids when you start them. I tried 3 apps when we brought our baby home, and this one really resonated with us. My husband and I both use it on our phones so that if one of us is watching him, we know how he’s doing during the day, or if one is watching and the other takes over, we know when the next time he needs to eat/ sleep is. Its great.

Great app so far. I love that I will be able to sync my pump when the time comes for me to be able to go back to work. MedelaFamily could use some improvements for moms who primarily breastfeed (secondarily pump). 1) on the my baby menu it would be nice if the Last Tracked Today options could be customized. I don’t use MedelaFamily to track sleep so I don’t need to see it on the my baby page. I would love to see the last time my baby breastfed though AND from what side. 2) The day overview is great but it would be nice if you could see which side(s) were used. 3) The breastfeeding stats page is completely useless. It’s wonderful that it tracks time, but again would be nice to see what sides were used in the nursing session.

The functionality of MedelaFamily would be far better if the pump created an entry while in session. Currently, after I finish pumping, I transfer the milk to the fridge and during that time, the Sonata powers off. I have to wait until the pump is powered on again before I can log my entry which, most of the time, happens at my next session. By that time, I’ve forgotten the amount to log so I have to go back to the fridge and verify again before I can log the amount. Logistically, it’s time consuming. This could be simplified if a session was updated real-time and that way, I could log the amount pumped immediately while fresh in my mind.

In reading through the reviews I’m noticing a trend with login issues. I tried downloading MedelaFamily and when it came to the login screen, it told me I already have an account (I’m assuming from when I registered my pump). I tried logging in but it said failed, so I reset my password. When I used the reset password that Medela automatically emailed to me, it was still saying login failed. I would love to use MedelaFamily but unfortunately cannot get past the login screen. I’ve emailed Medela and am hoping they actually fix the problem instead of telling me to do basic things like delete and download MedelaFamily again, which I’ve already done. Sounds like tech support doesn’t go beyond this advice with others having the same issue - hopefully all of these poor reviews will get them to look at it a bit more closely.

I literally JUST downloaded the application. I don’t have any type of account with Medela so I’m trying to register but as I try and create an email and password it says that the email or password are incorrect, as if I was trying to log in. And I do have it in the “Register” option. Also right above the email box it says “Good Format” and above the password box it says “strong enough” so I’m guessing the problem is all on the other side.

Just need to add my opinion on this as well, if you’re going to promote your app, fix all the login issues first. It’s not a good first impression on MedelaFamily . I personally will just remove it from my phone and not download again because if its having issues from the very start, who know what other issues I might encounter later on, that is, if the login issues are fixed.

I love the purpose of MedelaFamily. It has made my life way easier so i don’t have to track my sons feedings and diapers in the notes app. However, the functionality of MedelaFamily needs to be improved and more in line with current apps. It would be a milllion times better if gestures could be added, so we have the option to swipe through each section of MedelaFamily (like Instagram). I usually only have one hand, and i often cannot reach certain parts of MedelaFamily unless i set the phone physically down to try to navigate through. I would also like the “list” section of my sons stats to have the option to add entries to it from that page. I don’t fine it necessary for those two to be separate

We love MedelaFamily. It is very easy to use and great when both of us track so the other knows the progress.

A couple of suggested changes. Make dual accounts. Right now we just login in as both but dual shared accounts would allow tracking of who entered what. Not that big of a deal but we could maybe add grandparents in the future.

I don’t like how the measurements preferences allow for either standard or metric. Split it up. Our baby’s weight is in standard but the amount of supplemental formula or breastmilk is in milliliters. We have to log as ounces and just put the milliliters in the notes.

Also weight needs greater break down. A baby at 8lbs 11oz dropping in weight to 7lbs 6 oz is a big deal but MedelaFamily only allows for .25oz increments.

We love the warnings when MedelaFamily realized the amount of feedings were dropping baby weight and weight loss suggested contacting our doctor.

I started using MedelaFamily a couple weeks after my daughter was born. It helped so much, and I honestly was lost without it. A few months after using it, I was locked out of my account and unable to log in after many different attempts, even tech support wasn’t able to help me. I was told they were looking into it multiple times, but still nothing. I had to create a new account which means I lost all the data from the first couple months of my daughters life. Very sad. App is constantly logging me out and takes a while to log back in. I hope Medela tech support can fix these bugs, because it really is an awesome app.